Guardian (8 page)

Rafael shrugged, studiously ignoring my eyes, like Colton when I caught him acting badly. “What of it?”

“Why?”

He shrugged again.

“You’ve been spying on me, and you don’t even have anything to say for yourself?” Now it really felt like I was chiding Colton.

Rafael stared at his feet. “I just, I find you interesting. I like finding out what you think about things, and how you occupy yourself all day.” He laughed a little to himself. “You talk to yourself a lot.”

“I’m
praying
,” I said shortly, and then reined back my impatience. “You could just
ask
me all this,” I pointed out. “If you’re afraid to, I really haven’t any idea why. I’ve tried to talk to you several times, and you always run me off!”

Now Rafael looked me in the eye, reminding me yet again of Colton as he grinned mischievously. “Oh, I’m not that interesting. Not like you.”

I huffed and collapsed onto the bench. “Are you doing that on purpose?” I asked, annoyed.

“Doing what?” He appeared genuinely confused.

“Claiming that you are not very interesting has the opposite effect, you know. It makes you extremely interesting.”

Now his dark eyebrows shot up in surprise. “It does?”

“You,” I said, grinding my teeth, “are
intensely
aggravating.”

“I am not trying to be. Maybe you should have more patience,” he suggested, cool as a cat.

I spluttered at him, struck speechless. “Me? More patient? Are you serious? I’ve gotten
awards
for my patience!”

Rafael coughed something underneath his breath.

“Excuse me? What?” I said sharply. “Did you just say ‘conceited’?”

He only grinned at me. I started to get indignant again, but then I realized what was happening. This serious, strange man that so intrigued me and seemed so set on avoiding me, was teasing me. He was actually smiling, something I had never seen him do. I was so surprised by this, I couldn’t really be upset. I settled back into my bench. “If you really want to know more about me, you should talk to me, instead of stalking me. That’s frowned upon in most societies these days.”

“Thanks for informing me,” Rafael said, sounding almost serious. “I’ll keep that in mind. But if I talked to you, Lyla, would you answer all my questions? I think following you and watching you can be far more informative than talking.”

“Of course I would answer your questions,” I said, confused.

Rafael’s strange eyes bored into me. “Would you tell me what your father and mother do if they’ve had too much to drink? Would you tell me why you have four locks on your bedroom door?”

My foot, which had been tapping anxiously against the pavement of the sidewalk, stilled, and I purposefully avoided looking Rafael in the eye. “I guess we’d have to be pretty good friends for me to answer questions like that,” I said lightly.

That moment was when I should have been concerned about this stranger who was following me, knew so much about my life. Looking at it from a step back, I should have been terrified, running hard and fast the other direction. Only I wasn’t. This man had saved my life three times now. How could I be afraid of someone who was so set on keeping me safe?

Rafael ducked his head. “I’m afraid I’m not a good candidate for friendship.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“That thing where denying something makes someone else want it all the more.”

“Sorry.”

We sat in silence for a long time, me wondering what secrets Rafael had. I could pretend all I wanted, but he had just named mine. My mom and dad were not model parents. They probably never would be. But look where it had gotten me. I was still safe, I had taught myself how to keep us safe and whole in a situation where things could have gone the complete opposite way. I had God to rely upon, and because of my parents’ neglect, my faith in Him was strong and sure. I prayed for my parents every day. Maybe someday they would have a miraculous epiphany and turn righteous… or maybe they wouldn’t. I would leave it in God’s hands because I was sure He knew best.

And as for being friends with Rafael? Well, I couldn’t deny that he held some kind of magnetic attraction for me. I thought about him constantly. Whether it was because God wanted me to reach a hand out to this lonely man or because I, personally, found him very attractive, I wasn’t totally sure. But everyone needed a friend, didn’t they?

I cleared my throat. “You have your secrets, and I have mine.” Let him think he didn’t know everything. From what I could tell, he needed a dose of humility. Him, and the rest of the world, that was. “We can still be friends. If one of us brings up a topic that we feel doesn’t need discussed, we’ll just have a… a code word, so we know to drop it. But we can talk about other stuff.”

Rafael was grinning at me again. He did that a lot, as though I was just a little kid whose antics he found extremely amusing. “A code word? What kind of code word?”

I debated for about half a second. “Austin.”

Rafael laughed outright, and I realized with some surprise that it was the first time I had heard him do so. It was so deep and otherworldly that I shivered. That was the only word that I could really think of to describe Rafael. Otherworldly. He wasn’t from this world, this plane of existence. I wasn’t sure how I knew this or where he
was
from, I just knew he was
different.
Majestic and elegant, exquisite in a way that wasn’t quite human. And his eyes. Those eyes spoke generations.

“Austin,” Rafael said, still chuckling. “That’s perfect. All right, Lyla Evans. If you insist, I suppose I could spare some time to the endeavor.”

I hopped up from my bench, smiling ecstatically. “Excellent!” I was so happy, so pleased that I had actually won a battle with Rafael, that I could hardly contain my excitement. “Let’s meet tomorrow. Right after school, like three o’clock?” I was already trotting back toward Colton and Grace, hoping that with me about to leave, Rafael would feel he couldn’t refuse. And to my great delight, he didn’t.

“Sure. Three o’clock, tomorrow,” he said, still with a genuine smile on his face.

I gave a little wave, and then turned around to collect my siblings. I looked back once, and he was already gone.

I ran all the way from school to our meeting place in the park, practically dragging Colton and Grace along behind me. I made sure they were content in the sandbox before I headed for the bench and collapsed onto it. It was a warm day, and I fanned my red cheeks as I waited for him. Minutes passed, and I checked my watch. Fifteen after three. He was late. Five minutes later, I was just beginning to wonder if I was getting ditched when a voice whispered in my ear, “Sorry I’m late.”

I screamed and jumped off the bench. Rafael stood behind it, looking genuinely apologetic. He wore his usual uniform, dark blue jeans, black T-shirt, black leather jacket. The only thing that disturbed his dark, bad boy look was the demure expression on his face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.

“It’s all right,” I said, hand on my heart. “I just didn’t hear you. You’re really quiet, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.” Rafael shrugged. He took a seat on the bench I had vacated, and I was too unnerved to sit next to him. Interesting as he was, he was still big and muscled and sort of scared the wits out of me.

“So,” I said, unsure of how to proceed.
Please, God, give me courage.

“So, Friend,” Rafael said as well.

“So, what brought you to Columbus, Friend?” I asked. It went without saying that he wasn’t from around here.

Rafael shifted uncomfortably. “Business,” he finally settled for saying.

Not very satisfactory. “What kind of business are you in?”

“Can I plead the Austin?”

I frowned inwardly, wanting an answer, but knowing we had an agreement. “Yeah, sure. It’s not illegal business, is it?”

“In most countries, no, it’s not.” He was smiling that infuriating smile, the I-have-a-secret-you-don’t-know smile.

“Have you traveled a lot?” I asked wistfully. I was pretty sure he was joking about the illegal thing. Pretty sure.

Rafael’s answer was, for once, very serious. “I’ve been around the world more times than I can count.”

“For your… business?” I clarified.

He nodded. “For my business.”

“This business… is it the hunting, or whatever you were talking about when I tried to thank you for saving me from Austin?”

I could tell I had surprised him. He obviously hadn’t thought I was very observant at the time we’d had that particular conversation, and it felt a little satisfying to finally have an advantage.

After a very long pause, he nodded his head again.

“And what is it that you’re hunting?”

“Austin.”

I gave an annoyed sigh and began pacing back and forth before the bench. “Where are you from, then?”

“Austin.”

“Texas?” I asked, surprised.

He shook his head, smiling a little. “No, I’m refusing to answer the question. Austin.”

I looked at him. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

I resumed pacing. “Do you have any family? Brothers or sisters?”

“Austin.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“Austin.”

“Did you go to college?”

“Austin.”

“Are you Catholic?”

“Devoutly so.”

“Then why don’t you ever come to mass?”

“Austin.”

I stopped pacing and faced him, hands planted firmly on my hips like one of the sisters at school. “Well,” I said sarcastically. “Since that leaves out pretty much anything to do with you, what would you like to talk about?”

Rafael shrugged. “You said we would have a secret word for secrets. It’s not my fault I have so many.”

I squinted at him. “Whose fault, precisely, is it then?” I asked.

“Austin.”

“Uhhh!” I threw my hands up in the air in aggravation. “You’re telling me that I’m supposed to be friends with someone that I know basically nothing about?”

“Take it or leave it.”

I huffed again and resumed my pacing. After a moment’s hesitation, I asked, “Do you have friends, back home, wherever that may be?”

Rafael looked up into the sky, and he got that sad look on his face, though this one was nowhere near as heart wrenching as the one he’d had outside of the church. “Thousands upon thousands,” he whispered.

“Oookaaaay,” I said, and more quietly, “I’d hate to see your Facebook page.”

But Rafael heard me anyway, and laughed a little. I brightened considerably after that.

“My turn for questions,” he said brusquely. “What’s your full name?”

“Lyla Marie Rose Evans,” I said.

“Rose of Lima, I assume?” he queried at my second middle name, the name of the patron saint I had taken at my confirmation several years ago.

I nodded.

“Were you born in Columbus?”

“Born and raised,” I grumbled. “It’s only the most boring place on the planet. There’s nothing here.”

Rafael grinned at this. “Do you enjoy school? You always seem to be there, or studying.”

“Moderately. If I want to escape my house and be able to provide for myself, I need to do well in school. So I do.”

“And you attend church every Sunday?”

“More than that, if I’m able,” I said quietly.

“Your faith is quite extraordinary, for being so young,” Rafael commented.

I shrugged. “God has always been there for me.”

“It’s more than that,” Rafael insisted. “It, it seeps out from you, your trust in Him. Being near you, it’s like when I stand outside the church. I can
feel
Him inside you, radiating out.”

I frowned at him. “Radiating out?”

Rafael nodded. “For someone like me, unable to set foot in a church, even being near one is like having rain after a drought. You, you’re like a church. Being near you fills me with, with, I can’t really find the words to describe it.”

“Why can’t you set foot in a church?” I asked, shaking my head. “Are you banned from it? What’s that called? Excommunicated! Were you excommunicated from the church?”

With my question, Rafael seemed to realize he had let something slip. His lips thinned and I realized they probably weren’t going to open up about that subject again for awhile. Without warning he stood up quickly, and I took a step backward, surprised.

“Our time is up for today,” he said, and began walking away at a quick clip. I blinked once, and he had already disappeared.

From that day on, Rafael and I met every day at the park, by the same bench. The first day after he had left so abruptly, I showed up, unsure whether he would come, but he was there even before I was. It was never agreed aloud that we would meet every single day, but yet every afternoon, at three sharp, there we were, sitting on the bench, talking.

Once I learned after that first week of prying that any conversation and questions directly involving Rafael’s past, present, and future were totally off limits and meant an early end to our day, we got along a lot better. Our talks ranged from my school and life plans, to the places and countries he had visited (which he was more than willing to talk about, so long as I didn’t ask what he had been doing there).

I began, soon after, to realize that we were becoming friends, slowly but surely. But it was a different kind of friendship than what I shared with Natalie or Austin. Though they had been my closest friends nearly all my life, there were things about me, about my life and my parents that they didn’t know. And yet Rafael did. He had known from the beginning, and I found it was much easier to confide in him about it than Natalie or Austin. He listened, rather than trying to tell me what to do. He had amazing insight, seemed to understand people better than I could ever hope to, and I found myself wanting our days in the park to last longer and longer.